People stage big show of opposition to coup in Myanmar

People have taken to the streets in force in Myanmar’s largest city of Yangon to protest the recent military coup and the detention of civilian leaders in the Southeast Asian country.

Thousands of anti-coup protesters gathered in Yangon on Wednesday in what they hoped would be a major show of opposition to the army’s overthrow of the country’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The protesters blocked the city’s roads and bridges with vehicles, pretending their cars had broken down, to stop police and army trucks from moving around to break up protests.

Social media platforms were flooded with calls for a show of force by protesters and a “broken-down car campaign” after the military’s overnight block on the internet was lifted.

Numerous pictures soon appeared of supposedly stalled cars, with hoods raised, clogging up streets.

The Wednesday protest comes as a civil disobedience campaign and nationwide protests continue to grow over the military coup in Myanmar, with more violent efforts by the junta to bring resistance to heel.

“We have to fight until the end,” one protester said. “We need to show our unity and strength to end military rule. People need to come out on the streets.”

Myanmar’s military has denied that its takeover of the government constituted a coup d'état, claiming that it plans to hold a new election and hand power to a civil government.

Myanmar military denies coup, files extra charge against Suu Kyi

Myanmar’s military denies that its ouster of the government and arrest of political leaders constituted a coup d

Protesters, however, are deeply skeptical of the junta’s assurances.

The military, which has imposed a state of emergency for one year, ousted the government early this month and arrested Suu Kyi and her top political allies over accusations of voter fraud in favor of her National League for Democracy (NLD) Party in the November 2020 elections.

Suu Kyi, who has been charged with importing walkie talkies, is now facing a second charge of violating the country’s Natural Disaster Law.

The February 1 coup and the arrest of Suu Kyi and others have sparked the biggest protests in Myanmar in more than a decade, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets to denounce the military.

Since Sunday, the military has deployed armored vehicles and soldiers in Yangon and some major cities.

Myanmar army deploys troops, tanks as UN warns against violence

The junta has ordered a nationwide internet shutdown and deployed troops and tanks around the country as it intensifies its crackdown on protesters.

The military has also stepped up arrests of veteran campaigners, including doctors who have joined the civil disobedience movement against the coup.

In recent days, rubber bullets, tear gas, and even slingshots have been used against protesters.

More than 450 people have been detained since the coup, in a wave of mostly nightly arrests, according to the monitoring group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Meanwhile, United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Tom Andrews has warned that reports of soldiers being brought into Yangon could lead to the situation there spiraling out of control.

“I fear that Wednesday has the potential for violence on a greater scale in Myanmar than we have seen since the illegal takeover of the government on February 1,” Andrews said in a statement. “We could be on the precipice of the military committing even greater crimes against the people of Myanmar.”

The United States has already imposed targeted sanctions against Myanmar.

Myanmar was ruled by the military until 2011, when Suu Kyi ended the junta rule and introduced what were presented as reforms. She had been under house arrest before.

Her party, however, cultivated close relations with the military from the beginning of its activity and formed an alliance with senior military officers.

She supported the military in a deadly campaign of genocide against the Rohingya Muslim community in the western state of Rakhine. Suu Kyi also defended military atrocities against the Rohingya people at the UN’s top court in The Hague in December 2019.

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